In the words of FCHA Chief Executive Officer Julie Brewen: “We are committed to implementing new programs for the health and well-being of our staff.”

In an industry that deals with tough issues such as poverty, homelessness and families in crisis, she says, the program was a step in the right direction. The program consisted of daily, hour-long sessions during work hours that blended presentations, group discussion and meditation practice.

The results? According to Brewen, lowered stress and depression, and an increase in work/life balance.

What’s even more impressive is what she shared with me just recently, that her organization’s commitment to this lives on, with additional mindfulness training planned for this year, and some added questionnaires and wellness-survey questions designed to keep a close eye on the workplace well-being meter.

“Many of the participants [intend] to continue [their] meditation and mindfulness exercises” into the rest of 2015, she says.

Her column also suggests the concept could use some booster shots in the business community. “In my experience,” she writes, “most employers pay scant attention to stress and defer to employee-assistance programs as check-the-box solutions — despite poor utilization of this service.”

So what’s it going to take for the Fort Collins approach to become the approach of most? Perhaps when employers start acknowledging they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, even as it relates to your brand and reputation. As Harnett writes:

” … mind-body curriculums will please a growing portion of your employee population and improve your workers’ perceptions of the workplace culture. And that may be an employer’s greatest consideration of all.”

Employees who describe themselves as perfectionists who take work home with them and can’t bear the thought of being average sound like a manager’s dream, right?

Not necessarily, according to new research that finds employees with such workaholic tendencies may not always work out so well.

In its recent study of 1,385 individuals taking a “Type A Personality Test,” online psychological assessment provider PsychTests found 86 percent of respondents classifying themselves as workaholics saying they push themselves to accomplish their goals. Sixty-five percent of those in this group said they take work home with them, with 63 percent claiming they “hate the idea of being considered an average performer.”

That all sounds fine and good, but there’s a downside to an intensely driven personality that can manifest itself in some nasty ways.

For example, 73 percent of those who consider themselves workaholics said they have trouble unwinding at the end of the day. The same number reported getting angry with themselves when they “don’t finish everything they wanted to do.” (These folks aren’t exactly thrilled with co-workers they see as creating distractions, either, as 68 percent said they “can’t tolerate people who slow them down.”)

In addition, 60 percent said they tend to be overcompetitive and impatient with co-workers. Fifty-eight percent report feeling tense, 49 percent have trouble falling asleep and another 46 percent find their lives are too stressful.

These figures certainly aren’t the first indication that workers who regularly push themselves to extremes may be barreling toward a breakdown—and may end up taking some of their colleagues along for the ride. And, other studies offer evidence that this type of employee often reaches a point where his or her efforts simply become counterproductive.

Just last week, in fact, HRE Managing Editor Kristen B. Frasch reported on recent Stanford University research findings that suggest employees working more than 50 hours a week are essentially spinning their wheels soon after hitting the half-century mark.

In that piece, work/life experts urged employers and HR leaders to implement initiatives such as paid-time-off banks and flexible hours for all employees as a way to encourage better work/life balance among the workforce.

While making such options available is certainly a positive first step, PsychTests President Ilona Jerabek advised managers to be a bit more direct in dealing with hard-charging workers who may sometimes need saving from themselves.

“This kind of extreme, ‘Type A’ personality has a shelf life as an employee, as [such an employee] cannot keep up this kind of schedule and work dedication for a sustained period of time,” Jerabek recently told Bloomberg BNA.

“You need to give them permission to take it easy,” she said, “and explicitly tell them to take some time off.”

An interesting finding comes to us from various professors at some well-reputed academic institutions — Northeastern University, Boston College and the University of Massachusetts — showing that the more time dads spend with their children, the better they fare on the job.

You’d think the opposite would be true, considering how more time with kids generally makes working mothers pull their hair out more and generally jeopardizes work, the release poses.

But in this month’s issue of Academy of Management Perspectives, a paper detailing the results of the study — based on a survey of close to 1,000 working fathers — will show that fathers spending more time with their kids and mothers spending more time with their kids yield very different results.

As the release about the study notes, researchers found that “the more time fathers spend with their children on a typical day, the more satisfied they are with their jobs and the less likely they [are to] want to leave their organizations.”

Fathers spending time with their kids also put dedication to a career down a few notches on their career-identity/priority list, but the study says … hey, that’s … OK! As the release puts it, “any weakening of dedication can be effectively countered by management support with regard to work hours and family matters, the new research finds.” It goes on:

“In the words of the study, ‘Ideally, individuals should be able to foster a strong sense of involvement at home and still feel connected to their careers … . Analysis revealed that strong support from an organization via its management can mitigate the negative relationship between involved fathering and career identity.”

So why the difference between women and men? Though researchers Jamie J. Ladge and Maria Baskerville Watkins of Northeastern, Beth K. Humberd of U. of M. and Brad Harrington of Boston College don’t address it necessarily, an argument could be made that fathers are still getting the luxury of taking “baby steps” into more time with baby, whereas working mothers have long suffered “having to do it all.” (I say this as one who has been through multiple eras of this social experiment.)

But all in all, this is good news.

Now let’s see how many organizations can support the notion that fathers spending more time with their kids is a good thing. One study from a few years ago, written about in this HRE cover story, suggests they have a long way to go. It also suggests dads are more conflicted, not less, when they take that stand with their employers.

Good news out of the Society for Human Resource Management yesterday for those looking to move the needle on greater employee buy-in for wellness.

According to the association’s Strategic Benefits survey, more than one-half (53 percent) of the 380 responding employers said employee participation in wellness programs climbed last year. This follows similar findings in 2013 and 2012, when 56 percent and 54 percent of the respondents, respectively, reported a jump.

What’s more, more than two-thirds of the employers that offered wellness indicated that their initiatives were either “somewhat effective” or “very effective” in reducing the costs of healthcare in 2014 (72 percent), 2013 (71 percent) and 2012 (68 percent).

The SHRM study also found two-thirds (67 percent) of organizations with such initiatives in place offered incentives or rewards aimed at increasing participation, representing an upward trend from 2013 (56 percent) and 2012 (57 percent).

Of those organizations offering wellness incentives or rewards, 85 percent said these incentives were “somewhat” or “very” effective in increasing employee participation.

The study also found the number of organizations with wellness programs was on the rise in 2014, with about three-quarters (76 percent) of the respondents saying they offered some type of wellness program to employees last year, an increase from 70 percent in 2012.

In all, these findings paint a fairly positive picture as far as wellness is concerned. But one weak link uncovered in the SHRM research, not surprisingly, continues to be on the measurement front. Few companies, SHRM reports, are actually measuring the ROI or cost-savings analyses of their efforts (18 percent and 30 percent, respectively).

Nine in 10 (90 percent) of the respondents whose organizations had wellness initiatives said their organizations would increase their investments in its wellness initiatives if they could better quantify their impact.

(Some critics would argue that, were they to measure the effectiveness of these programs, they might not be nearly so bullish.)

The SHRM research also looked at flexible-work arrangements, finding that about one-half (52 percent) of organizations provided employees with the option to use FWAs, such as teleworking. Of those offering employees such options, about one-third (31 percent) said participation in these initiatives increased last year, compared to the year before. Just 1 percent indicated employee participation had decreased.

Though one in two employers provided employees with the option to use flexible-work arrangements, the survey found only one-third (33 percent) reporting that the majority of their employees were actually allowed to use them.

Something I would think employers will need to address, sooner rather than later, considering Gen Yers (big proponents of flextime) are projected to represent the majority of the workforce in the not-too-distant future.

Last week, HREreported on the Heartland Monitor Poll, in which 45 percent of 1,000 employed Americans said there was “some chance” they will be working on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day or New Year’s Day. Now, with Thanksgiving less than 24 hours away, we see more data suggesting a fair number of employees will spend at least the first leg of this holiday trifecta watching the clock at work instead of watching football on the couch.

Bloomberg BNA’s annual Thanksgiving Holiday Work Practicessurvey—conducted since 1980—found that 33 percent of 364 responding organizations are requiring at least some employees to work on Thanksgiving this year.

That number actually represents a 4 percent drop from Bloomberg’s 2013 Thanksgiving poll, but that’s cold comfort for those stuck at work tomorrow. (Incidentally, the Bloomberg survey finds employees responsible for public safety, security or maintenance are most likely to be among this group.)

On the bright side, however, 74 percent of the companies requiring Thanksgiving work will provide extra pay and/or leave. (That number stood at 55 percent last year.) Thirty-nine percent of these organizations will offer time-and-a-half pay, with 25 percent providing double-time pay. Ten percent will give those working on Thanksgiving both extra pay and compensatory time, while 8 percent of these employees will receive regular pay, and 7 percent will only be granted comp time for their efforts on Thanksgiving day.

Meanwhile, a recent CareerBuilder survey found 16 percent of 3,719 U.S. workers indicating they have to work on Thanksgiving (up from 14 percent in 2013).

More specifically, workers in leisure and hospitality (46 percent), retail (39 percent), healthcare (31 percent) and transportation and utilities (22 percent) will be leading the way among those most commonly reporting for duty on Thanksgiving, according to the study.

Interestingly, the same CareerBuilder poll found that nearly one in five employees will be giving thanks with colleagues tomorrow—even if they’re not working.

That’s right, 19 percent of respondents said they plan to celebrate the holiday with co-workers either in or out of the office.

I chuckled at that figure at first, as it struck me as odd that co-workers would be getting together on Thanksgiving, a day so associated with spending time with family and close friends. But I guess it’s not so strange that “family and close friends” would extend to include colleagues, given the bond that often forms among groups of people spending 40-plus hours a week together. And from an employer’s perspective, maybe it’s a sign that employees—or at least 19 percent of them—enjoy their co-workers and their work environment so much that they want to bring some of that atmosphere home for the holidays.

The Apples and Facebooks of the world are known for their original and generous employee perks and benefits. But these companies find themselves in the news this week for offering a new benefit that goes well beyond the usual on-site dry cleaning services and free haircuts.

Earlier this year, Facebook began covering up to $20,000 for female employees to freeze and store their reproductive eggs, so they can put off pregnancy as they establish themselves during their prime career-building years. Apple has announced it will start doing the same in January 2015.

Cryopreservation and egg storage could be seen as the latest advance from the tech firms that continue to blaze the trail for employee benefits that help attract and retain the best and brightest.

“Egg freezing is one in a long line of innovative HR practices intended to be attractive to educated people with many employment options, seeking a focus on flexibility in the difficult balance between work and life,” according to James Hayton, professor of human resource management at the Warwick Business School in Coventry, England.

“The cost appears to be moderate, although not trivial, at about 20 percent of average salary at these firms,” says Hayton. “The benefits, in terms of attracting and retaining employees, can be expected to significantly outweigh the costs. The positive PR will pay for itself by signaling these employers’ values with respect to women’s control over this important life choice to prospective female employees.”

All that said, the practice isn’t without its detractors.

Healthcare law and bioethics expert Seema Mohapatra, for example, wrote in August that egg freezing “seems to put a Band-Aid on the problem of how difficult it is for women to have a career and raise a family concurrently.”

This week, one woman, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the New York Timesthat delaying fertility for female employees is “certainly in the employer’s interest … from a business perspective. But in my experience, it’s more personal: Are you married or not married, and if you’re not and you’re over 35, it’s a health thing.”

In the same Times article, Mohapatra expressed concern that women who “do not fit that profile” could feel pressure to use the benefit.

“What I worry about is it’s not going to be just used by that population, but [it’s] going to be used by the population in their 20s and early 30s saying, ‘If I want to be seen as a serious employee and make it to vice president, I can’t take maternity leave,’” said Mohapatra, a law professor at the Barry University School of Law in Orlando, Fla.

Critics may also note that, “while perks such as these are very impressive and innovative, broader pay equity might be an even stronger signal of the importance of women in the workplace,” says Hayton.

Additionally, companies offering this benefit could draw the ire of religious groups with serious reservations over “the tricky domain of bioethics and reproductive choices,” he continues, adding that other observers may be “squeamish about the degree of paternalism when employers show concern for their employees’ reproductive choices.”

While we’re certain to see these and other strong reactions in the days to come, Hayton, for one, is confident that employers providing egg freezing options for female employees will prove to be a good thing.

“Ultimately … these policies are innovative and forward-thinking, and likely to benefit the employers [that are] creative enough, and bold enough, to offer them.”

Many contend that the unique perks the Googles and the Qualcomms of the world offer employees—on-site dry cleaners, pet-friendly workspaces, employer-hosted farmers markets—are as much about keeping people at work as they are about making their lives easier.

So it was interesting to read this recent Washington Post article, which highlighted a few companies that seem intent on helping their employees actually stay away from the office, and remain disconnected from their work after punching out for the day.

For instance:

Redwood, Calif.-based software company Evernote offers employees a $1,000 stipend for taking a full week away from work.

FullContact, a Denver-headquartered provider of contact-management software, gives employees $7,500 a year if they take time off of work. According to the Post, use of vacation time among the firm’s employees shot up after the policy was introduced.

Dutch design firm Heldergroen makes it impossible—or at least pretty uncomfortable—for workers to hang around the office past 6 p.m., when employee desks are lifted to the ceiling via steel cables, and all furniture is cleared from the floor.

Menlo Innovations opts not to offer technological tools for remote work. No employer-provided laptops, no virtual private networks and no remote-access software. The message to employees is clear, according to Richard Sheridan, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based software design firm’s CEO. “You can’t take work home with you,” Sheridan told the Post.

Quirky, a crowd-sourced consumer product maker with headquarters in New York, takes things a step further, shutting down completely for four weeks out of the year. Founder and CEO Ben Kaufman began the practice in early 2013, closing Quirky’s doors the first week of every new quarter.

Yes, most of these and the other examples cited in the Post piece are smaller and/or start-up type tech companies. But, with larger, more traditional-minded organizations always looking for ways to help employees strike that ever-elusive work/life balance—and position themselves as “cool” places to work—wouldn’t it be interesting if we started to see more Fortune 500 firms co-opt this piece of the freewheelin’, forward-thinking start-up culture?

It may seem a tad unrealistic to those of us who didn’t help start a billion-dollar behemoth of a company such as Google, but you have to like Larry Page’s concept of a world where we all spend less time at work. At least in theory.

In a recent interview with technology venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, Page and his Google co-founder Sergey Brin touched on subjects ranging anywhere from the San Francisco housing market to artificial intelligence.

During the interview, Page also offered up his vision of an ideal working world, in which employees work fewer hours, are more productive and “have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests.”

While theorizing that many of today’s employees are driven to work longer and harder mostly by a desire to feel valued and useful, fulfilling that need shouldn’t require a superhuman effort, he said.

“I think there’s a problem that we don’t recognize that,” said Page. “And I think there’s also kind of a social problem. A lot of people aren’t happy if they don’t have anything to do. So we need to give people things to do. [People] need to feel needed and wanted, and need to have something productive to do.

“If you really think about the things you need to make yourself happy—housing, security, opportunity for your kids—it’s not that hard for us to provide those things,” continued Page. “So the idea that everyone needs to work frantically to meet peoples’ needs is just not true. The amount of resources we need to do that, the amount of work that needs to go into that, is pretty small.”

Page suggested a few alternatives to free up more of employees’ time while maintaining a productive work environment, such as adopting four-day work weeks, or splitting full-time jobs between part-time workers.

“I was talking to [Virgin Group founder] Richard Branson about this,” he said. “They have a huge problem there. They don’t have enough jobs in the U.K. He’s been trying to get people to hire two part-time people instead of one full-time [employee], so at least the young people can have a half-time job rather than no job.”

Brin wasn’t so sure that idea would fly, however.

“I don’t think that, in the near term, the need for labor is going away,” said Brin. “It gets shifted from one place to another, but people always want more stuff, or more entertainment, or more creativity or more something.”

Brin has a point there. And there’s also the question of how the average employee would maintain his or her current standard of living on a part-time job that would presumably mean less money. Page didn’t shed any light on just how that might work. And I certainly wouldn’t want to be an HR professional given the task of clearing it up for a full-time employee who was just bumped back to part-time status.

HRE has done its share of stories on the plight of working fathers in recent years. But with Father’s Day approaching this Sunday, I figure it might be a good time to revisit this important, but frequently below-the-radar, topic.

I suspect that line of thinking also went into the White House’s scheduling of its first-ever conference on the challenges facing working dads earlier this week.

“We need to do more to give people the tools to be responsible employees and good parents, so they don’t have to choose between the families they love and the jobs they need. We need to make sure people are able to put food on the table, but also to be at that table to eat dinner.”

Perez, who noted that the United States is one of only four nations that fails to offer any form of paid parental leave, went on to say: “We need to take on a whole host of issues that, frankly, have been absent from the national agenda. We have to start talking about child care, which is shockingly expensive in the United States. We have to lean in on paid leave, flexibility, work/life balance and family-friendly workplaces.” (In case you’re wondering, the other three nations are Swaziland, Lesotho and Papua New Guinea!)

Among those on hand to share their insights and experiences was New York Mets’ second baseman Dale Murphy, who — some of you may recall — received a lot of flak from radio commentators when he missed opening day in April to be with his wife for the birth of their son, Noah. (WFAN radio host Mike Francesa said on his show, “Go see your baby be born and come back. You’re a Major League Baseball player. You can hire a nurse to take care of the baby if your wife needs help.”)

As Time reports, Murphy told participants he doesn’t regret his decision: “When Noah asks me one day, what was it like when I was born, I think it will go so much farther that I cut his umbilical cord. Long after I won’t be a baseball player anymore, I will still be a father and a husband.”

Murphy, of course, isn’t your typical employee. (What baseball player is?) But his experience is still an important reminder that companies, in general, need to do more to remove the stigma associated with dads taking time off following the births of their children and to be there for other important milestones in their lives.

Personally, I wish I demonstrated a similar fortitude early in my career. Soon after my wife gave birth to our first son, I was scheduled to take my first business trip to Europe. At the time, I felt it would be detrimental to my career not to go—so I went. It’s a decision I very much regret making—and one, I might add, my wife, to this day, won’t let me forget.

I suspect these kinds of stories are more common than one would like to think, though hopefully, some of the stigma has diminished with the increasing realization that working dads, much like working moms, should be entitled to a more healthy work/life balance.

Through in-depth interviews with 31 fathers who all have working spouses, the researchers from the University of Massachusetts/Lowell, Northeastern University and Boston College found there continues to be a “strong cultural perspective that, when men become fathers, little will change for them on the work front.” (The researchers also point out that organizations, managers and co-workers still—italics are mine—do not fully recognize and openly appreciate men’s caregiving roles.)

Judging from this recent study and others that preceded it, companies still have a lot more work to do in terms of removing the stigma surrounding working dads. From my perspective, the White House conference seems to be a good step in the right direction. (I also would imagine that the topic will be addressed again on June 23, when the White House holds its Summit on Working Families.) But it probably also shouldn’t be overlooked that employers have the ability to do something about this issue today, as a small but growing number of forward-thinking companies (including some featured at this week’s conference) have already demonstrated.

Telework has been taking its share of hits lately. And I’m not referring to Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer or Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly and their well-reported decisions to either end or limit telecommuting at their companies.

I’m talking about research conducted awhile back — and recently reported on — by Timothy Golden, associate professor at the Lally School of Management & Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. His study of 316 adult employees at a large computer company found working from home can enhance feelings of physical and mental fatigue in people who are already having a hard time balancing their personal and professional lives.

So, basically, working at home might not be so good for you. Tell that to the employees trying to convince you otherwise. Or the work/life experts telling you the same.

As noted in a piece on the Springer website, Golden’s work-at-home (or primarily work-at-home) participants were asked to answer questions about the levels of work-to-family conflict they experienced, including whether work kept them from family activities more than they would have liked, and whether they were too stressed to do the things they enjoy at home due to pressures of work. Golden also looked at levels of family-to-work conflict, such as time spent on family responsibilities interfering with work responsibilities, and difficulties concentrating on work because of stress from family responsibilities. Levels of work exhaustion and the extent and timing of telework were also assessed.

Golden and his crew found the more work and family demands conflicted, the more people suffered from exhaustion. Those with already high levels of work-family conflicts suffered higher exhaustion when they spent extensive time working from home, irrespective of whether they worked during traditional or non-traditional work hours. However, those who had lower levels of work-family conflicts suffered less exhaustion, which was further reduced by teleworking during either traditional or non-traditional work hours.

You’d think with more time at home, and no commute, in most cases, that things would be easier. But when you work at home, there are constant reminders of the work/family conflict, such as laundry and dirty dishes — not to mention interruptions by children and other family members. This actually raises stress levels, and is why having a dedicated work space and boundaries is your best bet if you want to leave the world of cubicles. Then, when you add on things like possible poor posture, lack of exercise and bad eating … well, you can see why working at home may not be so ideal.”

Whereas individuals may adopt telework as a means to enhance their quality of life and reduce exhaustion, those with low levels of conflict between work and family seem able to benefit more from telework than those individuals who have high levels of conflict between their work and home.”

Specific though they may be to teleworkers’ stress, exhaustion and family conflicts, Golden’s findings do help underscore — or, at the very least, suggest — a general retreat from the glory days of flexible work and home offices. In fact, this piece in Slate features a much-more-recent study, the 2014 National Study of Employers from the Families and Work Institute, showing that overall, there’s less support among U.S. employers today for a flexible-work culture than there was in 2008.

This certainly flies in the face of the rhetoric out there, that employers better brace for the telecommuting/flexible-work revolution.

On the contrary, based on a recent study from the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Mass., which I wrote about in this April 7 news analysis, it appears employers are hardly making strides to ready themselves for any such revolution, let alone ensure that their flexible work is even working. That study shows flexible arrangements aren’t being offered to most employees, and employers’ flexible-work options are too limited in scope and type to be effective.